BOSSIER CITY, Lou. – The sheriff of a Louisiana parish is stunned after Department of Justice funds were cut from a local Young Marines chapter, simply because some of the organization’s activities were deemed to be “religious.”

According to reports, the Louisiana Commission on Law Enforcement (LCLE) stripped $30,000 in allotted DOJ funding from the Bossier Parish’s Young Marines unit, which is a character-building program designed to encourage healthy lifestyles for members. An official for the DOJ told reporters that the cuts were due to voluntary student-led prayers and a mention of “church” in a Young Marine oath.

“[DOJ regulations prohibit] funding on inherently religious activities, such as prayer, religious instruction and proselytization,” he told columnist Todd Starnes. “And any religious activities must be kept separate in time or location from DOJ-funded activities.”

Julian Whittington, sheriff of Bossier Parish and a coordinator of the Young Marines program, is thoroughly disgusted by the DOJ and LCLE’s decision, saying it was “aggression and infringement of our religious freedoms.” After the funds were cut, DOJ officials told Whittington he would have to write a letter, promising not to pray or use the word “God” in Young Marines meetings, or else the money would never be restored.

“I flat said, ‘It’s not going to happen,’” he told reporters. “Enough is enough. This is the United States of America—and the idea that the mere mention of God or voluntary prayer is prohibited is ridiculous.”

Whittington further emphasized that he’s more concerned about the censorship than he is the lost funds.

“The money is not the issue,” he stated. “It’s the principle of the matter. What is going on here? Who is dictating what can or can’t be said in Bossier Parish?”

For over ten years, the Bossier sheriff’s office has facilitated the local Young Marines program, graduating over 1,000 participants since the chapter’s inception. According to the Young Marines’ national website, the organization “promotes the mental, moral, and physical development of its members,” and also “focuses on character building, leadership, and promotes a healthy, drug-free lifestyle.”

Participants in the Young Marines program are asked to recite the following oath:

“From this day forward, I sincerely promise, I will set an example for all other youth to follow and I shall never do anything that would bring disgrace or dishonor upon God, my country and its flag, my parents, myself or the Young Marines. These I will honor and respect in a manner that will reflect credit upon them and myself. Semper Fidelis.”

Government officials took issue with the first sentence’s mention of God, saying any federally-funded institution should not include religious overtones. However, Starnes recently pointed out that both the U.S. military’s commissioning oath and enlistment oath include the phrase, “So help me God.” And Whittington further asserted the inconsistency of the decision when he mentioned to local TV station KTBS that both the Pledge of Allegiance and the dollar bill include references to God.

Despite the funding controversy, Bossier Parrish’s Young Marines unit appears to be going strong, receiving an outpouring of financial support in response to the ordeal, according to the Shreveport Times. Just last week, another 15 young people were graduated from the program. At the ceremony, Whittington stated that the DOJ had overstepped its rightful authority.

“It’s more about the principle of the issue that Department of Justice can come down here in Bossier City, in our building and tell us what these young people just recited—a voluntary prayer,” he explained to reporters. “We don’t believe that’s offensive. We’ve never had a complaint, and we’re going to keep it in our program as long as we’re doing it here at the Bossier Sheriff’s Office.”

A New Orleans federal judge lifted the six-month moratorium on deepwater drilling imposed by President Barack Obama following the largest oil spill in U.S. history.

Obama temporarily halted all drilling in waters deeper than 500 feet on May 27 to give a presidential commission time to study improvements in the safety of offshore operations. Government lawyers told U.S. District Judge Martin Feldman that the sinking of the Deepwater Horizon rig off the Louisiana coast in April was a “game changer’’ that exposed the risks of offshore oil exploration.

“We need to make sure deepwater drilling is as safe as we thought it was the day before this incident,’’ Brian Collins, a lawyer for the government, told Feldman in a court hearing June 21. “It is crucial to take the time because to fail to do so would be to gamble with the long-term future of this region.’’

More than a dozen Louisiana offshore service and supply companies sued U.S. regulators to lift the ban. State officials claim 20,000 Louisiana jobs are in jeopardy if the deepwater drilling suspension lasts 18 months…

…Lawyers for the drilling companies told Feldman the moratorium illegally sidesteps a required industry comment period. They also said regulators failed to tell Obama that all active deepwater rigs passed an immediate re-inspection after the Deepwater Horizon exploded and sank, with only two rigs reporting minor violations and the rest getting approval to continue operations.

Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal asked Feldman on June 20 to lift the ban in 30 days after the judge imposes more stringent safety and oversight procedures. Such rules would incorporate the results of several ongoing drilling safety studies, including that of the presidential commission, Jindal and Louisiana Attorney General Buddy Caldwell wrote in court papers.

White House says it will appeal the injunction. Headed to 5th Circuit Court of Appeals.

Judge Feldman homes in on blatant lies incorporated into Deepwater report by Interior Secretary Ken Salazar. His head should roll:

In the Executive Summary to the Report, the Secretary [Salazar] recommends “a six-month moratorium on permits for new wells being drilled using floating rigs.” He also recommends “an immediate halt to drilling operations on the 33 permitted wells, not including relief wells currently being drilled by BP, that are currently being drilled using floating rigs in the Gulf of Mexico.”

Much to the government’s discomfort and this Court’s uneasiness, the Summary also states that “the recommendations contained in this report have been peer-reviewed by seven experts identified by the National Academy of Engineering.” As the plaintiffs, and the experts themselves, pointedly observe, this statement was misleading. The experts charge it was a “misrepresentation.” It was factually incorrect. Although the experts agreed with the safety recommendations contained in the body of the main Report, five of the National Academy experts and three of the other experts have publicly stated that they “do not agree with the six month blanket moratorium” on floating drilling.

Takeaway from decision: “After reviewing the Secretary’s Report, the Moratorium Memorandum, and the Notice to Lessees, the Court is unable to divine or fathom a relationship between the findings and the immense scope of the moratorium. The Report, invoked by the Secretary, describes the offshore oil industry in the Gulf and offers many compelling recommendations to improve safety. But it offers no time line for implementation, though many of the proposed changes are represented to be implemented immediately. The Report patently lacks any analysis of the asserted fear of threat of irreparable injury or safety hazards posed by the thirty-three permitted rigs also reached by the moratorium.”

NEW ORLEANS – The federal judge who struck down the Obama administration’s moratorium on deepwater drilling after the Gulf oil spill held the Interior Department in contempt Wednesday, and ordered the federal agency to pay attorneys’ fees for several offshore oil companies.

U.S. District Judge Martin Feldman chided the department for its “dismissive conduct” after he overturned the agency’s decision to halt any new permits for deepwater projects and suspend drilling on 33 exploratory wells after the Deepwater Horizon blast, which killed 11 workers and triggered the massive spill.

After Feldman overturned the government’s moratorium in June, the agency issued a second nearly identical suspension.

“Such dismissive conduct, viewed in tandem with the reimposition of a second blanket and substantively identical moratorium and in light of the national importance of this case, provide this court with clear and convincing evidence of the government’s contempt of this court’s preliminary injunction order,” he wrote.

A magistrate will consider how much the companies’ attorneys should get.

An Interior Department spokeswoman wouldn’t comment. A lawyer for the companies hailed the ruling.

“We’re obviously delighted with the court’s recognition of the government’s manipulation of the judicial review process,” said Carl Rosenblum, an attorney for Hornbeck Offshore Services and other companies that sued over the first moratorium.

Realize that the Interior Department isn’t in contempt; Obama is in contempt. The Secretary of the Interior serves at the pleasure of Barry Hussein. The Interior Department is pursuing the will of the president. And the president has contempt for the court, contempt for the law and naked contempt for the Constitution.

Federal Judge Roger Vinson of the Northern District of Florida, in a lawsuit by 26 state attorney generals, has held that Obamacare is unconstitutional. Judge Vinson first found that the mandate was unconstitutional, and then found that the mandate could not be severed from the rest of the law, requiring that the entire law be deemed unconstitutional.

Judge Vinson found that there was no need for an injunction, since the declaratory judgment that the entire law was invalid was sufficient. In effect, there is nothing left to enjoin, since no part of the law survived. By contrast, in the ruling in Virginia last year invalidating the mandate, the Judge severed the mandate from the rest of the law (but denied an injunction preventing the rest of the law from taking effect).

Here is the key language from the Order showing that Judge Vinson expects the federal government to obey the declaration that the law is unenforceable in its entirety:

“…there is a long-standing presumption “that officials of the Executive Branch will adhere to the law as declared by the court. As a result, the declaratory judgment is the functional equivalent of an injunction.” See Comm. on Judiciary of U.S. House of Representatives v. Miers, 542 F.3d 909, 911 (D.C. Cir. 2008); accord Sanchez-Espinoza v. Reagan, 770 F.2d 202, 208 n.8 (D.C. Cir. 1985) (“declaratory judgment is, in a context such as this where federal officers are defendants, the practical equivalent of specific relief such as an injunction . . . since it must be presumed that federal officers will adhere to the law as declared by the court”) (Scalia, J.) (emphasis added).

There is no reason to conclude that this presumption should not apply here. Thus, the award of declaratory relief is adequate and separate injunctive relief is not necessary.”

In this sense, this decision is far more sweeping than the Virginia case, and presents a greater problem for the Obama administration which arguably does not have authority to implement any aspect of Obamacare.

Here is the conclusion of the Order (emphasis mine):

“The existing problems in our national health care system are recognized by everyone in this case. There is widespread sentiment for positive improvements that will reduce costs, improve the quality of care, and expand availability in a way that the nation can afford. This is obviously a very difficult task. Regardless of how laudable its attempts may have been to accomplish these goals in passing the Act, Congress must operate within the bounds established by the Constitution. Again, this case is not about whether the Act is wise or unwise legislation. It is about the Constitutional role of the federal government.

For the reasons stated, I must reluctantly conclude that Congress exceeded the bounds of its authority in passing the Act with the individual mandate. That is not to say, of course, that Congress is without power to address the problems and inequities in our health care system. The health care market is more than one sixth of the national economy, and without doubt Congress has the power to reform and regulate this market. That has not been disputed in this case. The principal dispute has been about how Congress chose to exercise that power here.

Because the individual mandate is unconstitutional and not severable, the entire Act must be declared void. This has been a difficult decision to reach, and I am aware that it will have indeterminable implications. At a time when there is virtually unanimous agreement that health care reform is needed in this country, it is hard to invalidate and strike down a statute titled “The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.” …

In closing, I will simply observe, once again, that my conclusion in this case is based on an application of the Commerce Clause law as it exists pursuant to the Supreme Court’s current interpretation and definition. Only the Supreme Court (or a Constitutional amendment) can expand that.

For all the reasons stated above and pursuant to Rule 56 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, the plaintiffs’ motion for summary judgment (doc. 80) is hereby GRANTED as to its request for declaratory relief on Count I of the Second Amended Complaint, and DENIED as to its request for injunctive relief; and the defendants’ motion for summary judgment (doc. 82) is hereby GRANTED on Count IV of the Second Amended Complaint. The respective cross-motions are each DENIED.

In accordance with Rule 57 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure and Title 28, United States Code, Section 2201(a), a Declaratory Judgment shall be entered separately, declaring “The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act” unconstitutional.”

[Please click on that article for more on this story.]

“Contempt” is all over Obama on both of these major federal cases. Obama is all about contempt. Along with hypocrisy, contempt is the blood that flows through his veins.

To put it succinctly, to whatever extent Obama knows a damn thing about the Constitution, it merely makes him all the more in contempt of it, and all the more personally contemptible.

This “constitutional expert” is on the record tacitly saying, “I’m the pharaoh; I’m the emperor. And the Constitution means whatever the hell I want it to mean. And federal judges be damned.”

There’s all the crap about Obama being a Kenyan and a Muslim, etc. ad nauseum. We’re way beyond that. I for one don’t think that Barack Obama is conspiring to fly any planes into any skyscrapers.

That said, he is nevertheless a terrorist. He is an economic terrorist who literally destroys jobs by the hundreds of thousands – something no Muslim jihadist could ever do to us. And my labeling of Barack Obama has nothing to do with the color of his skin or even with his religion; it has everything to do with his Marxist ideology.

Actually, it’s not just the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee’s minority contingent that fears the loss of nearly a million jobs from new EPA rules on greenhouse gases and other emissions issues. It’s also groups like the United Steel Workers, Unions for Jobs and the Environment, and experts like King’s College Professor Ragnar Lofstedt. Hot Air got an exclusive look at a report that the EPW minority staff will release later this morning detailing the economic damage that an activist EPA will do to the American economy, and which will come at perhaps the worst possible time, both economically and politically.

The executive summary spells out the stakes involved in the effort to rein in the EPA:

New standards for commercial and industrial boilers: up to 798,250 jobs at risk;

The revised National Ambient Air Quality Standard for ozone: severe restrictions on job creation and business expansion in hundreds of counties nationwide.

The Endangerment Finding/Tailoring Rules for Greenhouse Gas Emissions: higher energy costs; jobs moving overseas; severe economic impacts on the poor, the elderly, minorities, and those on fixed incomes; 6.1 million sources subject to EPA control and regulation; and

In fact, the new regulations threaten to put entire industries out of business. The new standard for boilers, titled “National Emission Standards for Hazardous Air Pollutants for Major Sources: Industrial, Commercial, and Institutional Boilers and Process Heaters” and called the Boiler MACT, creates a standard that literally no producer in the US meets at the moment. The industry group Industrial Energy Consumers of America (IECA) represents end-user firms that employ 750,000 in various industries, and they concur:

IECA members have 6 units that were part of the best performing units and none can comply with the standards based on the best performing units. Based on the analysis of the data EPA used to develop these standards, it appears that none of the coal-fired boilers in the source category can meet the proposed standards.

What happens when the installed boilers don’t meet the new standard? Factories and other facilities will have to close, putting jobs in danger and firms already hammered by the recession will lose production days — which will destroy jobs. That’s why the United Steel Workers have sounded the alarm, insisting that the EPA’s proposal will mean disaster:

“Tens of thousands of these jobs will be imperiled. In addition, many more tens of thousands of jobs in the supply chains and in the communities where these plants are located also will be at risk.”

Nor are steelworkers the only group at risk. New industrial standards for Portland cement threaten to stop all American production in the name of environmental protection — and send the work overseas to China, where ironically the standards are more lax and more pollution will result:

“So rather than importing 20 million tons of cement per year, the proposed [rule] will lead to cement imports of more than 48 million tons per year. In other words, by tightening the regulations on U.S. cement kilns, there will be a risk transfer of some 28 million tons of cement offshore, mostly to China.” – Professor Ragnar Lofstedt, Kings College (London)

Again, no facility in the US meets the standards proposed by the EPA. Imposition of these standards would at least temporarily close almost 20 percent of all American cement producers and reduce long-term cement production from 8-15%. The cement that will be needed for construction demand will have to be imported, primarily from China, which is expanding their cement production using environmental standards significantly below current American standards. In other words, we can expect more pollution, not less — just outsourced along with the jobs in the industry.

Obama isn’t backing down. His jihad against fossil fuels and the US jobs those fuels create and sustain must succeed. No matter how many Americans are harmed. But in spite of the facts, our Liar-in-Chief keeps spinning and twisting:

“We may end up having to do it in chunks, as opposed to some sort of comprehensive omnibus legislation. But we’re going to stay on this because it is good for our economy, it’s good for our national security, and, ultimately, it’s good for our environment.”

“The president’s policies right now are doing much more harm than the [BP] spill itself to the economy of the South coast. … It’s just gotten to a point where people in Louisiana ask, ‘Do they even understand what is going on down here?’ They have the entire offshore industry virtually shut down.”

The Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll for Wednesday shows that 24% of the nation’s voters Strongly Approve of the way that Barack Obama is performing his role as president. Forty-four percent (44%) Strongly Disapprove, giving Obama a Presidential Approval Index rating of -20 (see trends).

Forty-eight percent (48%) of Democrats Strongly Approve while 75% of Republicans Strongly Disapprove. Among those not affiliated with either major party, 12% Strongly Approve and 52% Strongly Disapprove. […]

Heading into the speech, 30% of voters gave President Obama good or excellent marks for handling the oil spill. Forty-five percent (45%) said he was doing a poor job. Most voters (57%) still favor offshore oil drilling.

On another topic, most Americans (53%) continue to believe the bailout of General Motors and Chrysler was a bad idea. […]

Overall, 42% of voters say they at least somewhat approve of the president’s performance. That’s the lowest level of approval yet recorded for this president. Fifty-seven percent (57%) now disapprove. Those are the lowest ratings yet recorded for this president. The president’s approval rating has held steady in the 46% – 47% range for six months and it remains to be seen whether this new low is merely statistical noise or the start of a lasting change.

The most amazing thing is the independents. Of those, only 12% strongly approve of Obama, versus 52% who think he is a complete and abject failure. It was independents who propelled Obama to victory; it will be independents who propel Democrats to massive defeat in November.

Our new Louisiana poll has a lot of data points to show how unhappy voters in the state are with Barack Obama’s handling of the oil spill but one perhaps sums it up better than anything else- a majority of voters there think George W. Bush did a better job with Katrina than Obama’s done dealing with the spill. 50% of voters in the state, even including 31% of Democrats, give Bush higher marks on that question compared to 35% who pick Obama.

It gets better. Because the slick, slimy, oily turd is coming off of Obama and sticking to Democrats to make them stink all the more in November:

Democrat Stan Greenberg and Republican Glen Bolger conducted the first public battleground poll of this election cycle. They chose the 70 House districts experts regard as most likely to oust incumbents this fall. What they found was grim news for Democrats.

For this poll, Bolger and Greenberg chose the districts where incumbents are considered the most vulnerable, and, in the case of open seats, the ones most likely to switch party control in November. Sixty are currently held by Democrats — many of whom won these seats even when voters in the same district preferred Republican John McCain for president in 2008. The other 10 districts are the flip side — held by Republicans in the House, even though their voters went for Barack Obama in 2008.

These are this year’s swing seats — the political terrain where the battle for control of the House of Representatives will be won or lost. In this battleground, voters are choosing Republicans over Democrats 49 percent to 41 percent. […]

[Bolger] pointed out that President Obama’s approval ratings are much lower in these competitive districts than they are nationally: 54 percent of the likely battleground voters disapproved of Obama’s performance; 40 percent approved.

“It’s very problematic for the president to have a 40 percent approval rating in these 60 Democratic districts,” Bolger said. “When you look at history, when the president is below 50 percent nationally, his party tends to lose more than 40 seats.”

Which is all to say, get ready for some serious pain, Democrats. Because there’s an angry nation which has been betrayed and let down by the worst president in history just waiting to unload a gigantic can of whoopass on you.

You have to appreciate the irony at the start of this article. Democrats have mocked Sarah Palin’s “Drill, baby, drill.” But is their increasingly loud wail to Obama – “Do something, baby, do something” – somehow supposed to be better?

Do something, baby, do something: That’s the cry from Obama supporters and opponents alike as the oil keeps gushing into the Gulf of Mexico.

The political firestorm kept growing yesterday, with supporter James Carville ranting that the administration has been “lackadaisical” and “naive” in its response to the disaster. He urged it to rapidly “move to Plan B.”

But that suggests there was ever a Plan A.

Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal is so frustrated with the lack of response to his plan to stop the slick with sand barriers that yesterday he called on the White House and BP to either “stop the oil spill or get out of the way.”

“Plug the damn hole,” President Obama reportedly barked at staffers in frustration after the explosion. That’s right up there with “Heckuva job, Brownie” in terms of clueless statements uttered by presidents in the midst of nationally televised disasters.

Meanwhile, White House regret over Obama’s politically expedient embrace of the “Drill, baby, drill” trope is growing faster than the vast oil slick.

Back on March 31, Obama announced — to the horror of many of his supporters — that he was expanding offshore drilling along the coastlines of the south and mid-Atlantic and in the Gulf of Mexico. Worse, he painted a (too) rosy scenario of offshore drilling being eminently safe.

True, it is rare that a full-blown environmental catastrophe results from an offshore oil well. But it can happen — and a Democratic president who’s embracing drilling ought to know the risks, and be prepared for the worst. But rather than planning for a spill, Obama parroted McCain-Palin talking points about how safe offshore drilling is.
Turns out the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration back in 1994 drafted plans for responding to a major Gulf oil spill, a response called “In-Situ Burn.”

Ron Gourget, a former federal oil-spill-response coordinator and one author of the draft, told the Times of London: “The whole reason the plan was created was so that we could pull the trigger right away.” The idea was to use barriers called “fire booms” to collect and contain the spill at sea — then burn it off. He believes this could have captured 95 percent of the oil from this spill.

But at the time of the Deepwater Horizon explosion, the federal government didn’t have a single fire boom on hand. Nor is there any evidence that the government required BP to have any clear plan to deal with a massive spill. How is this OK?

The administration’s chief response so far was to send out Interior Secretary Ken Salazar to do his best impersonation of a totalitarian thug, proclaiming that the government would “have its boot on the throat of BP.”

(Fun fact: While in the Senate, Salazar backed an increase in oil and gas leases in the Gulf Coast region by promoting and voting for the Gulf of Mexico Energy Security Act of 2006.)

Since the “blame BP” strategy isn’t working, Obama will today announce tougher safety requirements and more rigorous inspections for offshore drilling operations. Sounds nice — except the problem isn’t a lack of safety requirements, it’s that the experts at the US Minerals Management Service ignored the existing requirements.

In fact, it was under Salazar’s reign that the MMS approved BP’s drilling without getting the permits required by law for drilling that might harm endangered species. The agency routinely overruled warnings regarding the safety and environmental impact of drilling proposals in the Gulf.

None of this was a secret.

It also shouldn’t be a secret that no matter how many inspections and safety requirements you have, you can’t ever completely prevent disasters like this one. If you’re going to permit offshore drilling, be prepared to respond to a spill.

If he promised us anything, Obama promised us competence. Instead, we’ve gotten the Keystone Cops.

Ah, competence. One day after Obama is gone, we might actually have some of that in the White House.

Obama is bringing his incompetence everywhere he goes, rather like the travelling salesman with the unfortunate body odor that exudes out of every pour brings stink with him everywhere he goes.

What was it about being a community organizer that prepared him to actually lead anything constructive?

It’s not right to say that Obama has been doing everything the federal government could do; no, he ignored the very first thing that the federal government already had as policy to do in the event of a disaster like this – and has done absolutely nothing else in its place. Oil that could have been contained and burned off is instead murdering all of the pelicans on the coast. And, instead of helping Louisiana do everything it could to keep that oil off its coasts and marshes, Obama’s federal government has massively screwed up on that side of the coin, too. Governor Jindal demanded 24 temporary sand berms to act as a barrier between the coast and the oil; first the federal government said it had to dot every i and cross every t with endless environmental studies before it would authorize any such construction; then the government said it would only permit six berms, and would only actually pay for just one berm. And now the oil is all over the place and its too damn late for much of anything but to scrub oil from the few pelicans that might survive.

Instead, what Zero did was ZERO. Instead of actually working to resolve he problem, Obama has handled this like a campaign issue. He handed all the responsibility over to British Petroleum while simultaneously saying he was responsible. It has all been about words rather than action.

Bobby Jindal has called upon Obama to “either “stop the oil spill or get out of the way.” And of course Obama won’t do either. His government is worse than useless, because it is getting in the way of actual efforts by Louisiana to DO SOMETHING.

“In Revelations, it says the water will turn to blood. That’s what it looks like out here — like the Gulf is bleeding,” said P.J. Hahn, director of coastal zone management for Plaquemines Parish as he kneeled down to take a picture of an oil-coated feather. “This is going to choke the life out of everything.” […]

Eugene, 54, who has worked for decades in a shipyard, said he was growing tired of the government’s response.

“He ain’t much of a leader,” he said of Obama. “The beach you can clean up. The marsh you can’t. Where’s the leadership. I want to hear what’s being done. We’re going to lose everything.” […]

Newly disclosed internal Coast Guard documents from the day after the explosion aboard the Deepwater Horizon rig indicated that U.S. officials were warning of a leak of 336,000 gallons per day of crude from the well in the event of a complete blowout.

The volume turned out to be much closer to that figure than the 42,000 gallons per day that BP first estimated. Weeks later it was revised to 210,000 gallons. Now, an estimated 500,000 to 1 million gallons of crude is believed to be leaking daily.

“He ain’t much of a leader.” You got that right. I was screaming that from the rooftops two years and change ago.

Do we have good information? No, everything keeps turning out to be wrong – and always much for the worse. Is anything getting done? No. Just one failed plan after another. Having never bothered to implement the plan we’ve had since 1994 for a disaster like this.

The Gulf of Mexico oil disaster is rather like the Obama administration itself: there’s just no end to this disaster, and all we have instead of solutions is a constant stream of misinformation and excuses.

Bob McCarty had a rather stunning surprise regarding the fiery explosion that is now building into the largest ecological disaster in American history. It turns out it was all approved by Barry Hussein:

Dan Riehl brought to light an interesting piece of trivia related to the offshore drilling rig disaster in the Gulf of Mexico. It appears the blame for this event, one of history’s worst environmental disasters, can’t be shuffled off to President George W. Bush.

The Macondo prospect is situated on Mississippi Canyon block 252 (MC 252), offshore Louisiana, Gulf of Mexico, USA, and is owned and operated by British Petroleum (BP).

The initial exploration plan for the project was submitted by BP to Minerals Management Services (MMS) in March 2009. The plan included drilling and temporary abandonment of two exploration wells over the prospect. The operator took control over the prospect through the Lease Sale #206 by MMS in March 2008.

Deepwater Horizon explosion

Drilling over the prospect was initially planned to be carried out by Transocean’s Marianas rig, but later changed to Deepwater Horizon. Deepwater Horizon caught fire when it was drilling at Macondo in April 2010. The rig sank into water after the accident and is currently lying over the sea floor, around 1,500ft northwest of the well centre and away from subsea pipelines.

Returning to Bob McCarty:

That’s right! It seems the initial exploration plan for the British Petroleum-owned Macondo prospect was, according to the folks at OffshoreTechnology.com, approved by the folks at the Minerals Management Service in March 2009. MMS falls under the supervision of Interior Secretary Ken Salazar and, by working your way up the federal food chain, the approval authority lands squarely on the desk of President Barack Obama.

Dan writes: Obama said his administration was going to do something with the oceans, as I recall. I didn’t think he meant destroy them. heh! Read the rest of his fine piece by clicking here or on the graphic above.

“I am absolutely certain that generations from now, we will be able to look back and tell our children that this was the moment when we began to provide care for the sick and good jobs to the jobless; this was the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal”

Is Obama looking up and saying, “I said ‘When the rise of the oceans began to slow,’ not burn up in a huge oil slick!”

There’s some truly great mockery of “the man who must not be laughed at.” But nowhere near enough. What we’re seeing is that this is the moment when we began to provide death panels for the sick and expiring unemployment benefits to the long-term unemployed; this was the moment when the oceans began to burn and smell like kerosene and our planet began to seriously turn to crap.

The Democrats are looking for someone to blame, because demagoguery is all they’re good at. But let’s not forget: the president who approved of this ecological disaster in the making is no other than Barry Hussein.

Republicans and Tea Party movement people keep getting demonized as being racist and violent. The only problem with that is that all the actual evidence is on the side of the fact that it’s the DEMOCRATS and liberals who are racist and violent.

First the “racist” thing. You want to see naked racism on display? Look here. You want to see powerful Democrats stating racist viewpoints? Look here. You want to see which party has pretty much ALWAYS been the official party of racism? Look here.

There was plenty of violence last year. Guess which side was behind virtually ALL of it? Look here. There has been quite a big of violence this year, too. Guess who has been behind that? Look here.

Bautch’s leg was broken and Brown incurred a broken jaw and nose as well as a concussion.

The Hayride reports that a source who visited Bautsch at the hospital the day after the attack says they were told the couple was attacked for wearing Palin buttons:

Two people at the Brennan’s event have now confirmed that the protest had largely broken up by the time it ended, but we also understand from someone who visited Allee Bautsch in the hospital Saturday morning that she and Brown were followed and attacked expressly because they had Palin pins on (she heard one of the attackers say “Let’s get them, they have Palin pins on” – so the attack WAS politically motivated as its victims understood it. It was not a mugging, it was not an argument gone wrong and it was not a bar fight.

In an interview this afternoon, Louisiana GOP Chair Roger Villere, Jr. told Lincoln Parish News Online he and several others were pursued by protesters last Friday night after a political fundraiser, but managed to get into a cab and avoid the mob. “We started to leave out the front door after the event, but the protesters had us blocked – there were six of us in our group – so we went out through the kitchen,” Villere said. Once they got outside, the protesters spotted them and began to pursue them, but they managed to get into a cab and avoid confrontation.

All the actual violence and racism is coming out of the left, but the mainstream media is dutifully concealing those facts and instead reporting on innuendo that the Tea Parties are “rightwing” and therefore “dangerous.”

Between the “Big Lie” tactic and the “Operation Himmler” strategy, the Democrats seem to have their political strategy, and the mainstream propagandists seem to have their reporting strategy.

Yesterday on ABC’s This Week With George Stephanopoulos substitute host Jake Tapper interviewed Bill Clinton and George W. Bush. Bush could not have been more gracious in praising Obama’s relief efforts.

In other words, he didn’t try to do to Obama what Obama and the Democrats so viciously did to him.

And I couldn’t help but wonder: if Democrats believed their own crap about Bush and Katrina, why on earth would they be asking George Bush to lead an effort for Haitian relief now?

It has now been six days since the earthquake that destroyed Haiti. Obama promised an unprecedented massive effort to provide emergency relief.

WASHINGTON — The U.S. relief effort after the Haiti earthquake started too slowly and cautiously, says a retired general who led the military relief effort on the Gulf Coast after Hurricanes Katrina and Rita.

“The next morning after the earthquake, as a military man of 37 years service, I assumed … there would be airplanes delivering aid, not troops, but aid,” said retired Lt. Gen. Russel Honore, who coordinated military operations after disaster struck the U.S. Gulf Coast in 2005. “What we saw instead was discussion about, ‘Well we’ve got to send an assessment team in to see what the needs are.’ And anytime I hear that, my head turns red.”

The problem, Honore told USA TODAY, is that the State Department and the U.S. Agency for International Development, instead of the military, take the lead in international disaster response.

“I was a little frustrated to hear that USAID was the lead agency,” he said. “I respect them, but they’re not a rapid deployment unit.”

USAID immediately dispatched an assessment team and search-and-rescue teams, but there has still not been widespread distribution of food or water, three days after the Haiti earthquake.

Let’s file that as a ‘no’.

Very little in the way of actual lifesaving supplies had gone out as of the time of that article. Has that situation improved?

So how about it, Martha? Is the relief effort getting to those who need it most?

RADDATZ: Well, we actually went with a convoy, one truckload of supplies yesterday. We arrived really early in the morning, expecting to track this truck, come back, and go out with another truck. It took us five-and-a-half hours to get these supplies where they were needed.

How many days did Bush get before Democrats hatefully and viciously attacked him?

Well, are they at least providing security for the relief supplies yet to come?

Another exchange during the ABC program between Jake Tapper and Martha Raddatz:

TAPPER: Speaking of chaos, Martha, we keep hearing about reports of sporadic violence. Where is the U.S. military in all this? Are they making attempts to secure the island?

RADDATZ: Absolutely not, Jake. They really aren’t. I keep hearing these numbers. There are about 4,200 American military supporting this mission, but mostly they’re out on the ships. They’re on the cutters. You’ve got the 82nd Airborne, not all of the 82nd Airborne, a brigade, about 3,500 soldiers are here. They’re expected to be here sometime next week. The Marines are not yet here, 2,200 Marines.

Jake Tapper pointed out to the US military commander for the region, General Keen, that:

General Keen, I’d like to go to you first. Martha Raddatz just reported that U.S. troops are not out there securing Haiti, even though there are sporadic outbursts of violence, some of them horrific. We heard a report of — in Petionville, a suburb of Port- au-Prince, a policeman handed over a suspected looter to an angry crowd. They stripped him, beat him, and set him on fire. We’ve also heard that some medical personnel are clearing the area because they don’t feel secure.

Sounds like another rather big ‘no’ vote.

I think I’ve amply proven the case that a week after the Haiti disaster a great deal separates what has been done from what could have been done. I can’t help but remember how bitterly the left attacked Bush for the same failures following an unprecedented natural disaster.

The left ignored the fact that Hurricane Katrina was a supermassive disaster that simply overwhelmed the resources of the federal government regardless of who was in charge of it. They ignored the fact that Bill Clinton hadn’t prepared New Orleans for such a disaster any better than George Bush did. They ignored the fact that the heavily Democratic city of New Orleans and state of Louisiana had utterly failed to prepare, when such preparation should have been at the very core of their agenda. They ignored details such as this:

The vultures of the venomous left are attacking on two fronts, first that the president didn’t do what the incompetent mayor of New Orleans and the pouty governor of Louisiana should have done, and didn’t, in the early hours after Katrina loosed the deluge on the city that care and good judgment forgot. Ray Nagin, the mayor, ordered a “mandatory” evacuation a day late, but kept the city’s 2,000 school buses parked and locked in neat rows when there was still time to take the refugees to higher ground. The bright-yellow buses sit ruined now in four feet of dirty water.

They ignored everything but their ideological agenda and the political axe-to-grind they had in their hands to swing at George Bush with.

And the propagandistic mainstream media helped them do it.

The same media that basically demanded that George Bush push a button and FIX New Orleans have gone out of their way to make excuses for the numerous failures in Haiti under Obama.

What is funny is that it was largely the attacks against Bush’s handling of Hurricane Katrina that led to the Democrat takeover of the House and the Senate in 2006.

Unemployment was 4.7% when the Democrats took over Congress. It was 4.7% when Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid assumed their respective majority leadership positions. They have been in control of Congress ever since: and what is unemployment at now?

The Democrat Party/lamestream media narrative is that Bush was responsible for the economic meltdown because it happened during his watch. There was never once a mention that it happened during Nancy Pelosi’s and Harry Reid’s watch. Because that particular narrative doesn’t fit their agenda.

”These two entities — Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac — are not facing any kind of financial crisis,” said Representative Barney Frank of Massachusetts, the ranking Democrat on the Financial Services Committee. ”The more people exaggerate these problems, the more pressure there is on these companies, the less we will see in terms of affordable housing.”

George Bush and John McCain repeatedly warned that if we didn’t address the situation, we would suffer a financial collapse.

These are entities that have demonstrated over and over again that they are deeply in need of reform. For years I have been concerned about the regulatory structure that governs Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac—known as Government-sponsored entities or GSEs—and the sheer magnitude of these companies and the role they play in the housing market. OFHEO’s report this week does nothing to ease these concerns.

In fact, the report does quite the contrary. OFHEO’s report solidifies my view that the GSEs need to be reformed without delay. I join as a cosponsor of the Federal Housing Enterprise Regulatory Reform Act of 2005, S. 190, to underscore my support for quick passage of GSE regulatory reform legislation. If Congress does not act, American taxpayers will continue to be exposed to the enormous risk that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac pose to the housing market, the overall financial system, and the economy as a whole.

With the fiscal challenges facing us today (deficits, entitlements, pensions and flood insurance), Congress must ask itself who would actually pay this debt if Fannie or Freddie could not?

Substantial testimony calling for improved regulation of the GSEs has been provided to the Senate by the Treasury, Federal Reserve, HUD, GAO, CBO, and others. Congress has the opportunity to recommit itself to the housing mission of the GSEs while at the same time making sure the GSEs operate in a manner that does not expose our financial system, or taxpayers, to unnecessary risk. It is vitally important that Congress take the necessary steps to ensure that these institutions benefit from strong and independent regulatory supervision, operate in a safe and sound manner, and are primarily focused on their statutory mission. More importantly, Congress must ensure that the American taxpayer is protected in the event either GSE should fail. We strongly support an effort to schedule floor time this year to debate GSE regulatory reform.

And they DID fail. They massively, massively failed.

Only about a month before the whole system crashed, Barney Frank went on the record and said this:

REP. BARNEY FRANK, D-MASS.: “I think this is a case where Fannie and Freddie are fundamentally sound, that they are not in danger of going under. They’re not the best investments these days from the long-term standpoint going back. I think they are in good shape going forward.”

But as our economy exploded along with the boondoggle housing finance market artificially sustained by Fannie and Freddie, the Democrats demagogued the Republicans. And the lamestream media duly reported it as though it were all the liberal’s-god-socialist-big-government’s truth.

And thus you see how the liberal demagoguery surrounding Hurricane Katrina led to the liberal demagoguery surrounding the economic collapse.

And even when Obama abandons Haiti to go to Massachusetts to prop up Democrat Martha Coakley’s failing candidacy, Democrats manage to demagogue over Haiti.

Bill Clinton, the Obama-appointed special envoy for Haiti, didn’t bother to go there, but focused on what was far more important: Martha Coakely’s election bid in Massachusetts.

Someone asked Bill Clinton about that, and he said that relief for Haiti and the election of Martha Coalkey in Massachusetts were “just two sides of the same coin.” The blatant and breathtaking politicization is mindboggling!!!

What would the mainstream media be saying about Republican George Bush literally turning his back on a disaster to fly north to Massachusetts to campaign for a Republican – bringing us special envoy to Haiti to do so with him – rather than turn south to deal with the Haiti disaster? What would these demagogues who deceitfully call themselves “journalists” have said?

Even if you’re a liberal, you’re not stupid enough to realize that the media would have unleashed hell on earth to attack George Bush for such a partisan political act of abandonment.

And that’s what I’m really getting at. The double standard between treatment of Democrats and Republicans is so massive it is positively unreal. Obama can screw up every which way and the media will let it pass; Bush could hit a homerun and the media would declare it a foul ball and then attack him for his incredibly poor swing.

Meanwhile, of course, millions of Haitians are suffering, and not getting helped.

Mass graves. Tent cities.More than 90% of the nation’s structures damaged or destroyed. No food.Amputees and orphans left to fend for themselves. Nearly all of the businesses gone. No employment. Yet it still gets worse for the people of Haiti.

Haiti’s Prime Ministery, Jean-Max Bellerive told CNN that he is receiving reports of children being stolen and trafficked as slaves, sex slaves and for the purpose of having their organs harvested to be sold.

“There is organ trafficking for children and other persons also, because they need all types of organs,” Bellerive said.

UNICEF is also reporting that children are being taken from hospitals by traffickers.

Had this happened under George Bush, with these results, the lamestream media would be attacking Bush as the most evil man since Hitler and the most incompetent buffoon since God created incompetent buffoons.